Golden Summer, Eaglemont

Streeton painted the work en plein air in January 1889 at his Eaglemont "artists' camp", located in the then-rural suburb of Heidelberg on Melbourne's outskirts. He passed through the area in late 1888 in search of the site depicted in one of his favourite paintings, Louis Buvelot's Summer Afternoon, Templestowe (1866). On his return journey, he met Charles Davis—brother-in-law of painter and friend David Davies—who granted him "artistic possession" of an old weatherboard homestead atop Mount Eagle. Streeton occupied the homestead over the next eighteen months; fellow plein airists Charles Conder and Tom Roberts joined him for extended periods, and less frequently other artists, notably Walter Withers.

Streeton described the location in a letter to Roberts, calling it "our hill of gold":^[1]

I sit here in the upper circle surrounded by copper and gold, and smile with joy under my fly net as all the light, glory and quivering brightness passes slowly and freely before my eyes. Nothing happier than this. I shout and laugh at my immense wealth, all free and without responsibility. Who could steal this from me? No one.

The title may have been inspired by young plein airist Leon Pole, one of the earliest members of the camp. In a letter to Roberts, Conder wrote affectionately of Pole, but said that he "sometimes drinks a little too much 'Golden Summer', as he calls wine".^[2] Years later, Streeton recalled painting Golden Summer as he, Conder, and plein airist John Ford Paterson shared cheese and a bottle of claret.^[3] John Sandes, a journalist who often visited the Eaglemont camp, wrote in 1927:^[4]

[Streeton] would go off by himself with his easel and canvas and would lie on the grass for hours, wearing only shirt and trousers, and staring at the sky and at the river in the valley, and at the Dandenong Ranges. ... Then he would get up and paint with strong, sure strokes, and the thing would grow into beauty as you stole up and watched over his shoulder. That is how he painted Golden Summer while I looked over his shoulder—40 years ago.

The painting is noted for its thick application of paint, and one evening in the Eaglemont homestead, Streeton approached the canvas with a knife in order to scrape away some of the layers. Roberts convinced him to "leave it alone", for which Streeton was later thankful.^[5]

The so-called "impressionist school" at Heidelberg has done some good after all.

Table Talk reported in May 1889 that Golden Summer, Eaglemont "abundantly testifies to [Streeton's] perfect sense of colour ... He paints summer effects as if he loved the country."^[7] When the painting appeared at the Victorian Artists Society's 1889 winter show, leading critic James Smith, while opposed to what he called "the impressionist fad", said Golden Summer "is the best example of this class of work in the exhibition."^[8]

In April 1890, Arthur and Emma Minnie Boyd of the Boyd artistic dynasty took Golden Summer, Eaglemont to London, where, the following year as Golden Summer, Australia, it hung on the line at the Royal Academy, and in so doing became the first painting by an Australian-born artist to be exhibited there. In 1892, it appeared at the Paris Salon, initially receiving an honorable mention, and then a gold medal during a second appearance.^[5] One critic noted the popularity of Golden Summer with "the crowds that throng the Salon", saying that it was "simply impossible" to pass by the painting "as it is utterly different from any other picture in the vast collection".^[9] Likewise, Australian artist John Longstaff, then based in Paris, said the painting "created quite a sensation and stood out in oneness and quality all through everything else on the walls."^[7]

In 1898, Golden Summer appeared at the Exhibition of Australian Art in London, where an English critic opined that it was "produced by a painter who sees with his own eyes", and that "its composition of light and shade ... [is] perhaps its strongest quality."^[10]